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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I started browsing the Web tonight looking to do something I had been doing in my Bash scripts with stat and three more lines of string cutting in one line instead.

I had been using stat -c &y file to get a file's modification date in scripts, but I have never liked the nine-digit "blink-of-an-eye" part of the return on that command. My method up till now has been to eliminate it with lines like these:

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice (or more times) and expecting different results, then the question becomes: "Who's the more insane? The person who follows the advice, knowing in advance it probably won't make any difference or work out the way they want it to, or the person who, after...

If, in Windows XP, the Desktop is, as it is in Mac OS X, a legitimate and discrete folder, then why, when one has "Command Prompt Here" and "Terminal Here" type patches to their context menu, is one unable to use them by simply right-clicking on some unoccupied space in the Explorer Desktop? Why, indeed, does one have to follow the monotonous path of "My Computer/C/Documents and Settings/[username]"*,...

This guy Jobs from north California
Has a fetish for Mach, though, I warn ya;
He may never believe
Someone ought to tell Steve
This is why bright people scorn ya.

(Inspired partly by hearing that Linus Torvalds said he didn't like Mac OS X because Jobs had woven in his -- Linus's -- nemesis, the Mach microkernel. This isn't the first time Jobs has either overseen or damned the lifeboats to put Mach into an Apple product -- those who know, remember MKLinux.)...